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Mobilized

Alexander Calder may or may not have invented the mobile, but his name nevertheless remains synonymous with hanging kinetic sculptures. So much so that we may be forgiven for assuming no other 20th Century artist ventured anywhere near the mobile as an art form in the wake of Calder’s defining — Continue reading …

Alexander Calder may or may not have invented the mobile, but his name nevertheless remains synonymous with hanging kinetic sculptures. So much so that we may be forgiven for assuming no other 20th Century artist ventured anywhere near the mobile as an art form in the wake of Calder’s defining innovation. Not so Michael and Frances Higgins, founders (in 1948) of Chicago’s venerable Higgins Glass Studio, and pioneers in the ancient technique of glass fusing. Though Higgins Glass became primarily known for tableware, “modern miracles with everyday glass,” some of Michael and Frances’ more inventive designs were surely mobiles: delicate, jewel-like dangles, reflecting and refracting light like glass chandeliers, as distinctive in their own way as Calder’s painted metal sculptures.